Dota 2 is a somewhat weird and wonderful world. Seattle based publisher Valve run three tournaments a year, and they’re undoubtedly the most esteemed events in the somewhat organised chaos that is the Dota 2 season.
The Boston Major and the Kiev Major are done and dusted. The champions have been crowned and it has been one way traffic. OG has taken both of them, adding to their victories in Frankfurt and Manila last year. That’s now four out of five Majors for the venerable Dota 2 team spearheaded by esteemed Israeli captain Tal ‘Fly’ Aizik.
Before Valve introduced the Majors system last year, the Dota ecosystem was almost solely centred around The International. The annual event is the flagship tournament for Dota 2 and last year broke the $20m mark with eventual winners Wings Gaming taking home just over $9,000,000.
Valve itself contributes $1.5m before releasing a compendium or battle pass that allows fans to contribute to the prize money by purchasing items in game. The items do not provide an increased chance of winning but instead are cosmetic and change the appearance of certain aspects of the game.
Of all purchases made, 25% of the monetary value is contributed to the prize money.
In just 86 hours, The International 7’s prize pool stands at a whopping $6,882,291. That’s already $5,282,291 contributed by the community. It stands $662,811 (12.55%) ahead of this time last year and should the trajectory continue it may well eclipse $25 million by the time we reach August. All numbers are taken from dota2.prizetrac.kr.
Esports Insider says: It’s that time of the year – where every Dota 2 player’s wallet gets emptied and everyone’s losing their lane wearing snazzy cosmetics. Valve have integrated more features than ever before in this year’s compendium and thus it wouldn’t surprise many if the prize money eclipsed last year’s staggering effort. It seems the Dota community takes pride in the prize growing every single year and who’s to argue?
